In an inkjet printer ejecting liquid ink from a nozzle onto a recording medium such as paper, the ink left inside the nozzle dries during prolonged waiting times between printings, clogging the nozzle. Thus, in an existing inkjet printer of this type, ink is continuously circulated between an ink tank and an inkjet head in which the nozzle is disposed.
In an inkjet head with such ink circulation system, pressure chambers made of piezoelectric materials are arranged linearly. A space sandwiched between adjacent piezoelectric materials may serve as a pressure chamber that can eject the ink via a nozzle. However, when the piezoelectric materials of a particular pressure chamber are driven at high speed, the ink may be unintendedly ejected from an adjacent pressure chamber. To address the problem, some inkjet heads are configured such that every other one of the spaces between the piezoelectric elements are hermetically sealed, thereby providing a space adjacent to each pressure chamber as a dummy chamber. In the inkjet head having dummy chambers of this type, each dummy chamber is formed by sealing a gap between the piezoelectric elements with, for example, a resin.
However, filling the gap between the piezoelectric elements with resin requires difficult work. Particularly when piezoelectric elements are arranged at short intervals or many piezoelectric elements are provided, resin filling errors increase in frequency and product yield is degraded.